By CHRIS AUSTIN

In honor of the upcoming day of amorous activities, I’d like to address the single man’s plight on Vashon. When I arrived here some four years ago, I was a swinging bachelor ready to woo the ladies. I quickly realized that virtually every woman on the island is either married, gay or both.

I knew I had to up my game or go back to eating ice cream out of the bucket and binge watching Netflix. I will be the first to admit that I set the bar pretty high for my arm candy. I am looking for a lady friend with gobs of money, low self-esteem and a weak heart.

Yet with my Saturday nights looking more and more like my Tuesday nights, I decided to take action. I found an expensive but classy online course that guaranteed to make the ladies head for their fainting couch. It was called the “Gentlemen’s Guide to Picking up Chicks,” and it had some sure-fire advice for fellas in a dating game slump.

For instance, when approaching a woman in a nightclub, don’t break the ice by calling her “baby cakes”; use the more formal “baby.” If a woman has red hair, it is OK to call her a redhead. This does not work for a woman with black hair.

Avoid conversations about large gambling debts or a persistent personal itch. Talk about your good points, like you passed your driver’s test on the second try or you can almost touch your toes or you can almost touch your toes while driving — demonstrate if needed.

That old adage that the clothes makes the man is never truer when trolling the love market for the next Mrs. Cuddle-muffin. Remember it’s white socks and Birkenstocks before Labor Day and black socks and Birkenstocks after. The same goes for cargo pants. Seal the deal with a T-shirt sporting an ironic saying like “Who farted?”

Now it may come as a surprise to you, gentle reader, that even with all the above advice I was still having trouble meeting Miss Right or even Miss Tonight. But one night while halfway through a bucket of rocky road and the first season of “Gilmore Girls,” it hit me like a diamond bullet. We need to get with the program and follow the rest of the animal kingdom by having a mating season.

I propose that we have a mating season from Aug. 1 to Oct. 30. That way we can all pig out on Halloween candy guilt free. Oh, Thanksgiving coming up and Christmas after that? No problem. Gorge away like you’re getting ready to hibernate because mating season is months away. You would have plenty of time to work on your six-pack abs, find out which spray-on tan works for you and practice those bar-side magic tricks.

Just think of it. Men will be in rut for only three months and act like human beings the rest of the year. Women, you can go outside with the face you were born with nine months of the year because nobody cares — it’s not mating season.

One of the best benefits of this idea is no more Christmas babies. You ask anybody born 30 days either side of this holiday, and they will agree. June babies get ponies and lavish parties, but by the end of the year, everyone has gift-giving fatigue, so Christmas babies get a pecan log from the gas station and a card that says “This is your birthday and Christmas present.”

Oh sure, there will be a few problems. We’ll have to see a year’s worth of rom-coms in three months. Retailers will put out their mating season decorations earlier and earlier, and by October everybody will be tired of hearing the canned love songs. Then there will be those people that don’t take down their mating decorations for months, which will make for an awkward moment when Christmas carolers knock on the door.

So if any eligible person of the female persuasion is reading my words, think about giving the mating season a try, unless you are free this weekend.

— Chris Austin is The Beachcomber’s circulation manager, a cyclist and writer.